MHRC People

Sylvia Xiaohua Chen is Chair Professor of Social and Cultural Psychology in the Department of Applied Social Sciences, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, Director of theYan Oi Tong Au Suet Ming Child Development Centre, and Interim Director of the Mental Health Research Centre at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She is a Chartered Psychologist of the British Psychological Society, a Registered Psychologist and Fellow of the Hong Kong Psychological Society, a Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities,Association for Psychological Science, and Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (now Advance HE), United Kingdom. Currently, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology and General Editor of Cambridge University Press Culture and Psychology Series. She has served as President of the Asian Association of Social Psychology, Associate Editor of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, and Associate Editor of the Asian Journal of Social Psychology. She has also served as a Member oftheHumanities and Social Sciences Panel (Joint Research Schemes) and the Humanities, Social Sciences and Business Studies Selection Panel (Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme and Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme), Research Grants Council (RGC).

Professor Chen’s research areas are in the fields of personality and social psychology, as well as cultural psychology. Specifically, her research interests include the social psychology of bilingualism and biculturalism, globalization and multiculturalism, personality and social behavior in cultural contexts, as well as cultural diversity and mental health. Her work has appeared in leading journals in the field, such as PNAS Nexus, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, American Psychologist, Psychological Science, and Social Psychological and Personality Science. She was a recipient of the Jung-heun Park Young Scholar Award (2005) and Michael Harris Bond Award for Early Career Research Contributions (2013) conferred by the Asian Association of Social Psychology, Early Career Award (2016) conferred by the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, and the Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme (2018/19) awarded by the RGC. She also received several academic awards from the American Psychological Association Division 52 (International Psychology), including the Outstanding International Psychologist Award (2022). She was invited to be a keynote speaker at different international conferences, including the 32nd (ICP2020+) and 33rd (ICP2024) International Congress of Psychology. She is ranked as one of Best Scientists in China in the field of Psychology by Research.com in 2024.

• Ph.D. in Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
• M.Phil. in Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
• Postgraduate Diploma in Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
• M.A. in Counseling Psychology, Santa Clara University, USA
• B.A. in English Language and Literature, Sun Yat-Sen University, China

• Chartered Psychologist (CPsychol), British Psychological Society
• Registered Psychologist & Fellow, Hong Kong Psychological Society
• Fellow (FHKAH), Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities 
• Fellow, Association for Psychological Science
• Fellow, Society for Personality and Social Psychology
• Senior Fellow (SFHEA), Higher Education Academy (now Advance HE), UK